Review of 2009

Kia ora,

My first blog ever! But need to do my bit and share a few things that Manaia have been involved with over the past 18 months! First things first though, Karl has been studying at Cranfield University for the past 12 months doing a full-time MBA course. Cranfield is a private post graduate university and is reknown for offering one of the best 12 month MBA courses in the world! Karl is the first Maori student to do the course and with great support from the university, his family and his peers he has been doing exceptionally well. We look forward to having him back with us when he officially finishes in September 2010 (next month). Good luck and kia kaha Karl!


Whatelse?

Ryefield Primary School
This was probably my most favourite education job of the year. Ryefield Primary School is nestled out in Hillingdon which is way out west, the 2nd last tube stop on the Piccadilly line. Bruce and I worked with all 17 classes (Nursery up to year 6) over the period of 3 & a half days teaching Maori culture. A couple of the teachers were from NZ and prior to our arrival, they taught all the kids the NZ version of 12 Days of Christmas. You know the one, 'On the 12th day of Christmas my teacher taught me...12 piupiu swinging, 11 haka lessons, 10 juicy fish heads..........and a pukeko in a ponga tree'. Well after about the 5th class singing it to us, we wanted to surprise the next class and started singing it to them (making out we didn't know that they knew), and they were so happy they could join in, so we all had great fun singing it together! The Ryefield kids were just GREAT, the teachers were AWESOME and we all had a fantastic time with one another.

Manaia head to Istanbul

A private 50th party saw Manaia heading to Turkey for the first time. A strong team of 10 went and welcomed guests who had travelled from all around the globe for the celebration. The following day a couple of the guys took a haka workshop with about 30 of the guests, who alongside the Manaia team performed to the other 120 guests that night at main birthday party held at the old Orient Express Railway station, one of the endpoint stations of the famous railway which started in 1883.





Hewlett Packard

Garry Veale first experienced a Manaia haka workshop in Colorado while working for COPAN. When he shifted to HP, he invited Manaia in to work with his new teams in the StorageWorks division. Kiwi, myself, Bruce, Piri and Reagan kick started this mahi with a workshop in London, then Piri and the team ran workshops in Madrid and Frankfurt. Following the success of these workshops, Manaia were then invited to work with another HP team in Barcelona in early 2010.







Manaia go back to Marseille
Manaia were invited down to Marseille to perform at the Couleur rugby hospitality event prior to the All Blacks vs France game in November '09. Couleur are a large French travel agency who specialise in sports travel and were keen to make the most of promoting NZ, the Rugby World Cup and selling travel packages! Tourism NZ helped 'dress' the room to give it a real NZ feel and Manaia to entertain Couleur's 400 clients. Jonah Lomu also made an appearance as a guest speaker, but much to the guests delight, they were in for a real bonus when we jumped on stage with Jonah where we all performed the haka together. Ex-All Blacks captain Tama Umaga (here with Mereana Hond) even made a surprise visit on the evening. And just to top it off, of course the All Blacks won!






Finally....
Just to give you a taste of whatelse we got up to this year, Manaia ran Maori cultural education sessions at various schools and community organisations around the United Kingdom, here's some to name a few;

• Royal Liberty School
• Bamford Primary School
• Monks Eleigh Primary School
• St Augustine's Primary School
• Jumoke Family Centre
• Cheapside Primary School
• St Helen's Primary School
• Northway School
• Cheam Common Junior School
• Berger Primary School
• Tunbridge Wells Grammar School

Work this year also took us to Dusseldorf and Frankfurt with German heating technology company Buderus. We teamed up with Tourism NZ and worked on a promotion in Hamburg for Radio Hamburg. Once again we went to the worlds biggest ICT trade show (CeBIT) in Hannover with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise and perhaps a memorable job for the team was catching a private jet to St Moritz, in Switzerland where they performed at a private wedding.

All in all it was another great year for Manaia, educating and sharing with the European community more about NZ Maori culture.

Kia ora ra,
Kateia.